Morgan Stanley Upgrades Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) to Overweight

Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Morgan Stanley from an “underweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Monday, Marketbeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has a $92.00 target price on the asset manager’s stock, up from their previous target price of $66.00. Morgan Stanley’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 25.03% from the company’s previous close.

MC has been the subject of a number of other reports. Wells Fargo & Company assumed coverage on shares of Moelis & Company in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. They set an “equal weight” rating and a $70.00 price target for the company. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Moelis & Company from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 8th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Moelis & Company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $65.17.

Moelis & Company Stock Down 2.7 %

Shares of NYSE:MC opened at $73.58 on Monday. Moelis & Company has a 52 week low of $46.24 and a 52 week high of $81.60. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 138.83 and a beta of 1.37. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $72.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $65.38.

Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 23rd. The asset manager reported $0.22 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.20 by $0.02. Moelis & Company had a net margin of 4.22% and a return on equity of 12.15%. The firm had revenue of $273.76 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $273.58 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned ($0.15) EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Moelis & Company will post 0.97 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Moelis & Company

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. DGS Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Moelis & Company in the 3rd quarter valued at about $202,000. Tidal Investments LLC bought a new stake in shares of Moelis & Company in the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,290,000. Sanctuary Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Moelis & Company by 25.3% in the 3rd quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 12,214 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $917,000 after purchasing an additional 2,463 shares in the last quarter. SkyView Investment Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Moelis & Company by 2.2% in the 3rd quarter. SkyView Investment Advisors LLC now owns 14,166 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $971,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Virtu Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of Moelis & Company in the 3rd quarter valued at about $633,000. Institutional investors own 91.53% of the company’s stock.

Moelis & Company Company Profile

Moelis & Company operates as an investment banking advisory firm. It offers advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations and restructurings, capital markets transactions, and other corporate finance matters, as well as strategic, capital structure, and private funds advisory.